


Like Spinning Tops We Stop

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Although in chapter one we high-tail it through seasons 3-5, Bicycles, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Holidays, Kid Fic, M/M, No Spoilers for Season 7, Pen Pals, Peter Jakes Returns to Oxford, Post-Season/Series 06, Seaside, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22437889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: Peter Jakes was a friend. He can admit that now, now that he's half a world away.Until, suddenly, he isn't.
Relationships: Peter Jakes/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 97
Kudos: 115





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the fic I keep telling myself I will finish, but it is a post S6 fic I've had in the works for a while, and I want to get it out there before the new season! So here is chapter 1 :)

He hadn't expected this, when he shook Jakes' hand goodbye and wished him well. He'd thought his sadness was more for a what might have been. They'd been coming around to each other, and given time, he thought, they might have been friends.

Good for each other too, perhaps. God knows Jakes isn't shy to hold him to task when needed, and he likes to think he could have... held him to the straight and narrow. He's seen the way Strange is bending, but Strange is – well, he has different priorities. Jakes was never really about playing it up for the brass. He might have the swagger, but when it comes right down to it he can't imagine that face twisted, knuckles bloodied on a grass' face. It doesn't go with the careful suits. Or his history.

He rolls a mouthful of whiskey between his teeth and swallows. He can't really feel the burn any more.

Gone. Packed up and left Oxford in the rear-view mirror, pretty American bride at his side. It's good. He deserves happiness.

–

“Hey, matey.” A cup of tea appears on his desk, and Morse tries a smile. It probably looks cracked, certainly doesn’t feel right, but a Sergeant has made a lowly Constable a brew and he shouldn’t look too ungrateful, even if it is only Strange. “Here,” he passes over a postcard, one side depicting a neon-light cowgirl. Morse’s stomach clenches. “Jakes sent this, pass it on when you're done.”

He turns it over and the writing is so familiar; spiky and cramped, more spider's legs than letters. It's small, too, to fit more into the space, and the card has obviously been caught in a rainstorm – probably towards the end of its journey, knowing Oxford’s weather – because one or two words have been half-obscured with water damage.

It's like a puzzle, he tells himself, pulling out a blank sheet of paper. He copies over the words, barely paying attention to what they say, just creating a record. When done, he runs his fingers over the edge of the card, frayed and worn already by too many hands and knocks as it travelled, and flips it over to smile at the picture. It's for a bar. He wonders if Jakes went in, had the American equivalent of a pint, and thought about lunches down the Flag.

He'd got the gist while he copied it out, and picked up more from conversation around the nick, but it’s when he gets home that he pulls out his copy to read again.

_Dear Cowley,_

_As you read this, I am sunning myself on the porch of a good old Western homestead, gorgeous fiancée at my side and a large plate of grits in front of me – porridge to you and me, but they serve it here with sausage, which is a vast improvement on salt. I hope it’s cold and raining on you lot, and you're all on double shifts._

_No, just letting you know the plane didn't crash, her parents haven't killed me, and the wedding date is set. June 25_ _th_ _._

_Tell Morse thanks._

_Jakes_

Scrawled in one corner was a return address, and that Morse has carefully printed it below the letter in his copy. Peter wouldn't have left it if he didn't want people writing back to him, right? And he's called him out by name. Someone should let him know the postcard arrived.

_Dear Peter_ ,

he starts, before fiddling with the pen so much it breaks and spills ink all over his fingers. It’s just like it was with the bonds, the sudden absence of words when normally they spill out of him like water over a fall. He wonders if he should say that. What does it matter, really, if Jakes laughs at him now? He’ll never know, and it’s not like he’ll write back either. This is a courtesy note, not a correspondence.

_I never know what to say in letters, but I thought someone should let you know your postcard arrived. Thanks. And thanks for calling me out – Strange won’t give up harassing me about what I might possibly have done for my enemy that warranted a special mention._

It feels wrong to leave it like that, no interest shown, so he scrawls an extra couple of sentences.

_Did you go in the bar? How is America different to Oxford?_

He looks over what’s written again – stream of consciousness, almost – and considers screwing it up and throwing it in the bin. But it’s late, and he can’t be bothered to start again, and it’s enough. He adds his name, a postscript asking after Hope, and shoves it in an envelope. He’ll pop into the post office tomorrow.

\--

It’s a surprise, two weeks later, when an airmail envelope drops onto his front mat. He recognises the handwriting immediately, and although he’s running late, rips it open right there in the hall.

_Morse,_

_Thanks for your note, you tight bastard. You know how much it costs to send a letter? And you write six measly sentences. Tell me what’s happening in Oxford, I want to see if I can solve a case quicker than Strange from across the pond._

_Hope is good. She didn’t like the flight – upset her, with the baby, she was throwing up in those little bags until there was nothing left inside her –_

Morse wrinkles his nose.

_\- but she’s happy to be home. It suits her out here. She was beautiful in Oxford, but something about the sun here catches on her and – I don’t know. I’m not a bloody poet. No doubt you’d know what to say._

_Her parents were a bit cold with me to begin with, truth be told – I wasn’t totally joking on the postcard. But she showed them the ring, and her dad showed me which end of a cow was which, like I’m some city slicker, and laughed at me when one of them pushed me down in the mud. Strange, but I think that cow did me a favour, because he hauled me out and he’s been a lot nicer since._

_Yes, that’s a bar, and yes, we went in. Hope bought me a beer, all happy like, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. Take one part beer and two parts water, stick it in the fridge for a month and then run it through a soda stream, and you’ve about got it. I want to force feed you one just to see the look on your face. I drank it, I’m ashamed to say, Morse. She was waxing lyrical, and she’s carrying my baby._

_Right. That’s a proper letter. Remember – tell me about Oxford._

_Jakes_

He shoves the letter in his pocket, and races out the door. But as soon as he’s fetched Thursday – and weathered the look on his face at his tardiness – his mind is drifting back to wide sunny skies, cows, and terrible beer. At his desk, he arranges his reports and pulls out a fresh sheet of paper.

\--

It falls into an odd kind of routine. He always thought correspondence had to _say_ something, and that’s probably why he’s never done it, just found the words running away, rats in a drainpipe, even when sitting down to pen a Christmas letter to Joyce. But although they both pepper in bits of news to their letters, the majority of words between him and Jakes are nothing – meaningless asides, jokes and insults, and nothing more or less than what they’d say knocking about in the office together. It makes it easy.

Morse buys an actual paper set when he runs out of scraps, and keeps a stash in his desk drawer at work and at home, along with a stack of airmail envelopes. He feels stupidly sentimental, but he keeps the letters he receives back. It feels wrong to throw them out. Sometimes, when the walls feel like they’re closing in, and the second, third or fourth whiskey looks tempting, he pulls them out.

Sometimes he writes drunk. He can’t always remember exactly what goes into those ones, but the responses are as swift as ever, so his insults can’t have veered too far out of friendly jibes. Jakes can always tell, though, ribbing him about his handwriting in his reply.

He tells Jakes about the tiger, and the response to that is blobbed with ink like it was written in a hurry. He tells him about the bank heist, but can’t make himself write about Joan. He leaves the ending as blank platitudes about how everyone’s okay now. The response to that is more measured, nuanced, and ends with a textual clap around the head for standing up to a loaded gun.

Morse knows Jakes is married now, but he doesn’t send any photos, and Morse isn’t sure how to ask. Or even if he really wants to see. Perhaps it takes a while to get things developed out there. Eventually they arrive, but months later and tucked in with another – baby Susan. The name twists in his gut, but apart from where it’s written on the back of the photo, everywhere else Jakes calls her Susie, and the ache softens. Susan was never a Susie, but it suits this little girl with a shock of dark, curly hair. Who inherited Hope’s kinder face, but Jakes’ nose, god help her.

Life goes on, and as he moves about he sends updates of his new address. Every time when packing he places the shoebox of letters into the ‘bin’ pile, and every time he rescues it last minute. Never mind that space is short; he always manages to squish one more letter into the box, and the box under the bed. When he lives with Strange he checks the post religiously, meeting the postman at the door on more than one occasion. Strange raises his eyebrows, but Morse just shrugs like this is a thing of his, and luckily it fits well enough with his usual impatience to pass otherwise uncommented. He’s not sure why he hides it – possibly because nothing ever arrives from Jakes for Strange, and he realises Jakes isn’t some kind of letter writing aficionado, keen to keep in touch with Cowley – it’s just him.

He sends a picture of his own to Jakes, well delayed, when the pictures of Susie have mounted up, and the odd one of Jakes and Hope too, eyes squinting against the sun. It’s when he’s schlepped out to Woodstock. The local paper insisted on taking a snap to recognise their new policeman, and when Morse’s copy showed up on the mat he’d chucked it straight in the bin. The he’d looked at it again – the front-page image of him done up in uniform, and sliced it carefully from the fragile paper, slipping it in amongst letter leaves before he can second guess. He’s right, a fortnight later, that Jakes appreciates it; his letter is full of insults written in a hurried hand, and Morse can read the laughter in every line.

He realises when he’s penning his new address, ink still wet on the deed of his house, that their letters aren’t nothings any more. They carry the same feeling of weightlessness, the same thoughtless structure, crashing about like jumping jacks, but he’s spilled out the whole sorry story of Max, of Jago and Box, and Thursday, Bright and Strange without a second thought. He seals the envelope.

\--

Two weeks pass, and he sends another letter, just in case. A short note that will piss Jakes off about wasting postage, with his new address printed carefully in fully legible capitals. Three weeks pass. When it’s been four and half, Morse ducks into the library and looks up newspapers in the States, trying to work out weather patterns, farming schedules, anything that might have thrown things off.

There’s nothing, just a disruption from their regularly scheduled writing for the first time in three years. He thinks back to his last letter, and wonders if it was too much. If he should have dotted jokes in amongst picking up Max’s broken glasses and watching Box’s blood pool on the ground, knowing it was nearly his.


	2. Chapter 2

Christmas has come and gone, and Cowley fell drunkenly into the futuristic seventies by cheering the new year in the Lamb and Flag. He always finds changing decades an odd sensation, and is glad, from the 2nd, to say goodbye to the festive season and get back to normal.

Except now it’s been over two months since the last letter. 

Morse has just about cured himself of the habit of checking for post morning and night. He’d asked the desk sergeant at work numerous times – in case a letter had been rerouted there – but now he walks straight past in the morning. After work he accepts Thursday’s invitation to the pub; the older man is still trying to repair their relationship, and Morse wants it to work even as he worries that the scar is too deep to turn back the clock. It doesn’t help that his head is only half on the conversation, the other half a world away.

He hates himself for worrying.

“Did you ever hear from Jakes?” he asks curiously, in what he thought was a break in conversation. From the look on Thursday’s face, it may just have been a pause for breath.

“There was that postcard. Didn’t you see it?”

He had seen it. It had hung on the noticeboard for three months, and one day it was gone. Everyone thought the cleaners did it – also gone were notices about lost cats, piano lessons and spare rooms to rent that had been up there so long the houses had been demolished. Morse had taken it, and cleared the rest in a fit of organisation.

“Yes, I did. Nothing since?”

“No. Why?”

Morse shrugs as Thursday takes a drink of his pint. “Just wondered how he was doing now.”

\--

It had already been dark when they reached the pub, deep in the grip of winter nights, and now he’s leaving the streets are deserted. Morse has had something of a skinful though, Thursday generous with his wallet in the name of patching up friendship, and the cold slides off him like butter off a hot knife.

He walks home, hands deep in his pockets, and when he rounds the corner his stomach sinks. The house is dark and cold. He certainly doesn't miss the raucous section house, or any one of the blocks of flats with nosy neighbours. But there's something about a house shut up and closed off that drains him. The feeling always lasts right through unlocking, taking his coat off, stowing his shoes and turning on the lights. It only fades to manageable levels when he gets the record player going.

He wouldn’t say he’s lonely, but something deep within him occasionally pipes up that he probably is.

He tucks his nose into his scarf. It really is cold out, and maybe the beer is wearing off because his extremities are going numb. He searches for his keys, and as such, he’s practically on top of his own door before he realises a dark lump has set up on the steps.

It’s a bit out of the way for rough sleepers. Moving them on always feels unkind, but he can’t just step over the poor man into his large, unoccupied house.

“Sir,” he starts, dropping into a crouch.

“Morse, bloody finally, thought you’d never get-“

“Peter?!” It’s the first time he’s called him Peter (aside from that day at the tunnel), but the name springs from his lips before he can stop it.

“Yeah, wotcha Morse.”

The pile rustles, and a small girl with a mop of dark hair emerges, half-asleep and tucked inside Peter’s coat. 

He scrambles for his keys. “You must be freezing, hold on-“ he jimmies open the door, acting on autopilot, and flicks the light switch. Peter and the girl both flinch in the glare, and her eyes open blearily. They’re a light blue. He couldn’t see that in the photos. “Come through.” He curses every last drink in the pub as he hustles Peter into the living room. How long have they been sitting on the stoop?

Come to that, why are they here? Where’s Hope? Why didn’t Peter let him know?

Peter looks exhausted, so Morse bites his tongue and just kneels in front of the fireplace. He gets a flame going quickly, the wood catching like it never normally does, and offers up a wordless thanks to an entity he doesn’t believe in. He relinquishes his spot to Peter. “Tea?” 

Peter nods.

In the kitchen, he puts together tea and pulls apart his cupboards looking for something to feed them too. His hands falter as the kettle boils. He’s been drinking. He’s lonely. There’s no reason for an old friend – one who lives a world away – to turn up here, on his doorstep. He sneaks through the hall, but if he’s mad it’s a lasting affliction, because they’re still there. The girl – Susie – has woken with the heat and Peter is forming his old newspaper into boats, hats, and boxes for her to play with. He creeps back to the kitchen and makes the tea.

\--

Peter seems… morose as they drink, the liquid warm and unfamiliar at this time of night when Morse would usually pour whiskey. Obviously something has happened to send him across an ocean, back to the one place he tried to escape. But as he drinks his tea and eats the toast – as he lets Susie eat as many biscuits as she wants, washed down with milk – the lines on his face lighten. His eyelids grow heavy.

It can wait, Morse thinks.

“I’ll set up the back bedroom,” he announces. “Susie-“ the little girl looks up at the sound of her name, and their eyes meet. It’s the first time she’s looked at him, retreating to her father’s lap every time he’s in sight and burrowing her head in his chest. Peter has one arm locked around her, one free for tea or toast, and the white of his knuckles tells Morse it’s not just Susie who needs the contact. “-she’ll be in with you? I mean, there are other bedrooms, but-“

“Yeah, in with me, thanks.”

He leaves silently, dragging the extra sheets from his bed to make up the spare. He’s not exactly ready for guests, but he cobbles together what he can, moving his duvet across to the back bedroom. He figures his spare towels will keep him warm enough tonight if he anchors them with his coat.

Peter heads to bed after that, Susie still clutched to him. Morse sits awake, a knot in his stomach and one hand wrapped around a long-cooled mug of tea. He’d wanted to see Peter again, to see how their correspondence could translate from the page to real life, and if they could call what they have a real friendship. He’d even entertained the idea of going to America for a holiday someday, when there was a break in cases. He wanted to see him.

But not like this.

\--

He’s up late the next day, no doubt due to his disturbed night. Even when he’d headed upstairs, he’d lain paralysed in his bed, shivering under towels and staring at the wall. He couldn’t concentrate on his books, and hadn’t dared put a record on for fear of waking the other occupants.

He thinks of nights spent blaring opera in any number of flats, and smiles to himself.

When he stumbles downstairs, the lights are on. He follows the smell of toast as it wafts from the kitchen to the stairwell. 

“Morning.” Peter dumps a mug in front of him, made just how he likes it. 

“You remember?”

“Not exactly difficult, Morse. Once I made a pretty good detective. You need a form of intelligence for that, if you’re gonna string clues together.”

“I thought the cows would’ve beaten it out of you.” Peter slams a plate of toast down to join the mug, and Morse grins. “You’re well trained.”

“Don’t get used to it. Special circumstances, to make up for dropping in on you.”

Morse shrugs. Susie is watching him warily from across the table, and he smiles and waves. She giggles, and hides her face in her plate. “I don’t mind,” he says, through a mouthful of toast and butter.

“We’ll get going soon.”

Was Oxford just a pitstop? He swallows stiffly. “Where are you going to go?”

Peter turns his back, and runs the taps to start washing up their breakfast dishes. “I’ll find a hotel for now, then-“

“Just stay here,” Morse says. “No point paying for a hotel. I’ll be out all day anyway, you’ll have the run of the place.”

Peter washes two plates and a glass, then the butter knife. “You sure? With-“ he gives an odd sort of shoulder jerk in Susie’s direction. “Not many men would want,” he adds awkwardly.

“Stay.” Morse says again, standing and sliding his coat. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be back about six.”

\--

He wonders if Peter will leave after all, and the idea has him jumpy the whole day. Thursday even asks what’s wrong, but he thinks about explaining and the words dry like straw in the fields. How to say, now, after three years, that he’s kept up a secret pen pal relationship with Jakes? That the ex-sergeant has turned up on Morse’s doorstep unannounced, child in tow, and Morse left them there with still no idea why?

He just puts him off instead, and Thursday frowns but lets it go, because trying to repair their relationship seems to translate to Thursday leaving Morse alone when he pushes him away. He remembers being sent home after long days. Being collared into meals at the Thursday house. Sandwiches pressed into his hands, until the choice was take them or let them drop in autumn puddles. He remembers advice and guidance, and a verbal cuff ‘round the ear when he didn’t listen, and never imagined it’s absence would taste stale.

He walks home slowly. There’ll be a note, at least; Peter wouldn’t leave without that. Probably. It’ll say what hotel he’s staying at, and maybe they can meet for a drink. He keeps his eyes on the puddles, until unfamiliar light catches and reflects and draws his eye upwards.

The house is a beacon – living room lights lit but curtains not yet closed. Drawing him home. His breath catches in his throat, and he opens the unlocked door.

“Peter?”

“In the kitchen!”

He looks into the living room first, and Susie holds up her bear. He nods, pulling closed the drapes. She shakes it, and he dips into a crouch. “Very nice,” he says awkwardly, and she shoves it into his hands. “What’s his name?” Instead of answering, she turns around, searching for another toy.

“Mr Ted,” says a voice from the doorway.

“Hi,” he says awkwardly, rising to his feet. He realises he’s still clutching a threadbare brown bear, and places it carefully back near Susie, so it’s sitting neatly.

“Thanks Morse,” Peter says, as he gathers Susie up.

“Thanks for staying.”

“I’ll find a place.”

Morse shrugs as they walk through to the kitchen. “No rush.” He smells the stew Peter has been making for the first time, and amends his statement. “ _ Really  _ no rush.”

\--

He never realised how much  _ work _ there was in having a child. He’s never thought about it in any kind of systematic way – assumed, at some point, there would probably be one or two – but he’s aware he’s not the type of adult children generally warm to. At least not young ones, with their messy faces and shy silences.

After dinner Peter disappears, and Morse clears the dishes listening to the gush of running water for Susie’s bath. That doesn’t seem to be the end of it though, and while Morse sits in the living room with a record on low and a glass of whiskey, Peter creaks the upstairs floorboards back and forth.

“What were you doing?” he asks curiously, when he finally reappears and helps himself to Morse’s whiskey.

“Bath, teeth, pajamas, story, glass of water, goodnight kiss, toilet, goodnight kiss again.” Peter smirks at the look on Morse’s face. “Kids don’t really sort themselves out, you know, you have to do it for them.”

“It’s weird, you being a parent.” It’s not, really – he heard enough stories through the letters that the idea has sunk in somewhat, merged with the verbal jabs and the dour looks he remembers from before. It’s just different to see it; a Peter Jakes that hovers on the edge of uncanny.

“Normally you have help.”

“Yes. What-“ he breaks off, unsure how to ask.

Peter knocks back the rest of the glass and pours himself another.

“Sorry,” Morse adds. “You don’t need to tell me anything.”

“No, I-“ Peter frowns down at amber liquid. “I should. I want to.”

“Doesn’t have to be tonight.”

“Stop being so bloody  _ nice _ Morse!” Peter shouts. He runs a hand through his hair, and Morse notices for the first time the lack of pomade. It’s not just age that’s changed him; he seems softened somehow, no longer wearing his armour. Morse wonders if that was Hope and Susie, or the wide open plains of America. Or if it was just the journey back – exhaustion and too much to do to focus on grooming. Peter’s hand leaves his hair in disarray.

“I can shout if you want.”

Peter glares, but the fight leaves him and he slumps on the sofa. He stares into the depths of his glass, and Morse is hardly the person to lecture someone on their drinking habits, but it feels like the edge of a precipice. He says nothing, and breathes a silent sigh of relief when Peter sets the glass back on the table.

“Hope died.”

Oh. Morse clears his throat, then feels stupid for doing it. What does he have to say, how can he commiserate over a loss like that? But he can’t say nothing.

“I’m sorry…” It sounds awkwardly like a question, and Peter huffs an empty laugh.

“Cancer. By the time we knew… there was no time left. Not enough anyway. Could never have been enough.” He looks up, and Morse has seen Peter broken before, but it doesn’t get any easier. “We were meant to have forever. Till death-“ his voice breaks. “You never expect that to be soon. You expect… old age.”

“Arthritis and grandchildren.”

Peter smiles sadly. “And get off my lawn.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. Peter shrugs.

“I was gonna stay, try and make a go of it. Susie’s American. But without Hope… her parents were – well, they were as kind as they could be. But they were heartbroken too, and…”

As he trails off, Morse remembers Peter of old, surrounded by his peers in the pub. Of his joking asides to the other sergeants in the office, even the two of them, the way they were starting to come together. He realises Peter wrote of Hope and Susie, even of Marion and Jeff, but never mentioned anyone else. Even Morse’s letters had a revolving cast of the Thursdays, Strange, Trewlove, Bright and Max.

“You wanted to come home. No one could blame you.”

“They could. They hate me for taking her away.” Peter leans forward, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. When he sits up he doesn’t look at Morse, but keeps his gaze firmly fixed on the unlit fireplace like it holds the answers. “I stole her from her only family.”

“ _ You’re  _ her family.”

“I’m not enough-“

“Yes, you are.” Morse stands, crossing to the mantle and letting his fingers play over the time-furred edge of an old photograph. He shoves it at Peter. “She was enough for me.” Peter studies it, silent, and Morse shifts. “And, you know. You’ve got friends here. Me. I’ll – I know nothing about children. But. Stay as long as you like.”

Peter hands him back the photo and stands, with a short nod. He heads for the door, but pauses with his hand on the knob. “Thanks Morse.”

Tomorrow, Morse resolves. He’ll buy another set of sheets.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s interesting for a man who likes his space to find himself with two open ended house guests. One of whom  _ distracts _ constantly, picking at him and needling him until he bites back, then grinning at him like it’s all good fun. And the other who looks at him with too-large eyes, pushes random objects into his lap when he’s trying to read, and cries if he looks at her the wrong way.

He becomes careful to avoid that at all costs, if only to stop the noise.

“You’ll spoil her, you know that,” Peter says, as Morse closes  _ The Very Hungry Caterpillar _ and immediately turns it over and starts again.

“It’s a book,” Morse argues between page turns. He hasn’t mastered the art of talking to children, and as such he and Susie mainly communicate through gestures. She frowns and he offers something. She smiles and he breathes a sigh of relief. “I’m teaching her to love literature.”

“Creating me a little bookworm?”

“There are worse things to be.”

“Yeah, I know.” Peter claps him on the shoulder on the way out of the room, and Susie nudges his arm, pointing at a fat caterpillar who’s eaten through the cheese.

“Yes,” Morse answers, before thinking that tone still isn’t quite right. Susie doesn’t seem to mind though, scrabbling at the book for the next page, until they reach the end once more and he flips it back to the beginning.

“Creating a lepidopterist,” Peter grumbles as he reappears, setting a glass of beer on the side table.

“Big words for a farmer.”

Peter hums, stretching out and picking up the paper. Morse had half filled in the crossword before dinner, and now watches the way Peter reads over the clues before turning to the news pages. He has no idea if Peter likes crosswords, if he’s trained his brain to work in that circular way, or if he’s as straight thinking as he always was. It made them a good team.

“’M not a farmer any more.”

No, thinks Morse, one eye on the familiar brightly coloured pictures and one resting on the figure on the sofa. Every day it gets harder to imagine Peter Jakes on a horse, or rounding up cattle. He fits, here, in Oxford. To think of him anywhere else... it’s becoming jarring. “Are you coming back to the police?”

“Probably not.” 

Peter turns a page, but Morse’s head snaps up. He might have asked the question, but he thought it a non-starter, just a way to fill air. 

“The hours are too irregular, and – I couldn’t… the bank,” Peter says suddenly. “And the tunnel, and the goddamn  _ tiger _ . Thursday, that – that time up at… when I wasn’t… and Mason Gull-'' Morse flinches, even now, after all this time- “and the day you fell through the floor of that old house, and-“ Peter meets Morse’s eyes. “The shoot-out, with Jago and Box.” So he did get that letter. Of course, he'd other things going on. “I can’t risk leaving her alone.”

Morse feels the warmth next to him where Susie leans, impatient with his faltering and now turning the pages herself while he holds the book steady. He can’t imagine her being left alone either. Dropped off with the welfare, and Joan cares, he knows, but she can’t save them, can’t fix the lack of a parent with kind eyes and a warm hug that then walks away. “Fair enough,” he says, perhaps a beat too late. “Any other ideas? Teacher?”

Peter laughs. “I thought that was your alter ego. Tucked up all cosy with Trewlove.”

“I slept in the bath.”

Peter laughs again, hard enough that his eyes crinkle as he leans forward, and Morse feels an answering humour rise in his chest. “'Course you did. You're a bloody disgrace, you are, can’t even get the girl when the whole world is pushing you into it.

\--

Peter must be bored, because over the next few weeks he takes up the little tasks that Morse never seems to find time for. He does the washing, and he fixes the kitchen cupboard door that's been hanging wrong since Morse moved in. There’s always fresh milk in the fridge, and they don’t run out of bread or have to resort to chopping bits of mould off the cheese. He cooks, in the evenings, and the menu might be child friendly, but Morse has never developed a sophisticated palate either.

He watches the office clock, sometimes, as it ticks down to five.

“Matey!” Strange sits on the edge of his desk, and Morse leans backwards with a grimace. “Pub?”

Pub. Warm lights and good beer and Strange, who he’s not spent an evening with in weeks. A packet of crisps that heighten the tastebuds, and one pint too many, probably, and a chilly, meandering walk home with a brain quietened to a muffle.

Or home now, as the hour hand clicks to twelve. Warm lights and good beer, and Peter and Susie, who waved him off this morning, Peter smirking at the way the rain immediately plastered his hair to his forehead because he never remembers to bring his umbrella home from the station. Whatever Peter’s cooked up for dinner and another silent rendition of  _ The Very Hungry Caterpillar _ , and he is definitely visiting a children’s bookshop this weekend.

It's no contest, he realises. Not even a question.

“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “Another time.”

\--

The days turn into two weeks, then three, and Morse finds it hard to think back on when he sat in this house alone. They've worked their way into an easy routine, to the point where he can be left alone with Susie without feeling the stirrings of panic in his gut. They've expanded their library, and now he can even hold a conversation with her, darkly amused by the way she meanders down conversational alleyways that hold little connection, to his mind, to the original topic. He follows along anyway, aware of Peter's fond smile just out the corner of his eye.

It makes it all the more jarring when he settles down for breakfast and Peter starts flipping through the property pages of the local paper. “I should find a place for the two of us.”

Morse looks up, quickly, from his crossword. “You don't have to,” he says mildly, but his heart is racing like he's facing down gangsters. They can't leave. This house – which he'd bought because all the space seemed just what he needed after the section house – was too big, and too cold, and just... empty. Until he'd come home one day to Peter on his doorstep. “I've got plenty of room, and I'm not using it.”

“I can't stay here forever. You should have your space back, you don't need-” he waves a hand at the general detritus that's been shed around the kitchen, the living room – soft toys, and a half-done child's puzzle, pieces scattered- “all this.”

Morse thinks of his usual clutter, books and bottles on every flat surface, and wonders why that’s any better.

“You can't leave yet. I need you to help me with that oak in the garden.” It's big, and if it's left until spring there's a chance it'll start tearing up the foundations. It does need to come out, and it’s a two-person job. No reason why he couldn't ask Strange of course, but with Peter right here...

“All right. We'll tackle it this weekend.”

–-

Saturday dawns bright and clear-skied; a rare glimpse of sunshine after days of cold and wet. Morse digs two shovels out of the shed that came with the house, and stands squinting at the tree.

“Do you have any idea what you're doing?” Peter asks, leaning on the garden wall and stubbing out his morning cigarette.

He doesn't, really, but it can't be that complicated. Just taking down a tree. He drops one shovel into the soil – thankfully soft – and stamps it in further with his foot. “Digging it out.”

“Don't want to chop it down first?”

Morse stands back, and shades his eyes as he measures the length of it. It must stand about three metres, but it's still slim and gangly. “Did the cows tell you how to uproot an oak tree?”

Peter smirks and dives into the shed, coming out with an axe which he hands to Morse. “They might have whispered something in my ear. Make a notch- no,” he corrects Morse's grip, and points to the trunk. “Right here. It's a counterbalance, then you'll chop from the other side and this notch will make the tree fall the right way.”

Morse hacks at the trunk, making a small divot, and checks with Peter.

“Right. Not totally necessary considering how big this is – either one of us could catch it – but you know, best practice and all that. Now chop from here.”

It might be February, but with the sun and physical exertion, he's soon sweating. He stops and sheds his jumper, and when his head pops out the bottom he sees Peter has taken up the axe. He swings smoothly, in a rhythm, until the tree creaks. Morse catches Susie by the shoulder to keep her out of the way.

“Dry this properly and it'll be a good night's worth of logs.”

“You actually do know what you're doing, don't you?”

Peter grins at him, pushing at the trunk until the tree falls neatly to the lawn with a soft thump. “The cows taught me many secrets, Morse.”

“They teach you how to get a stump out?”

Peter grabs one of the shovels and presses it into Morse's hands. “Hard work,” he says. “You start on that, I'll chop this up.”

–-

After the oak, Morse finds other odds and ends to do, but just as he's running out, Peter starts coming up with his own list. “You've lived here months, Morse, and it’s still a hovel.” He comes home early one day, hours for the week more than used up thanks to two separate midnight suspect chases, to the two of them in the living room. Furniture is piled in the middle and covered in dust sheets, Susie using them as a fort. Peter is splattered in paint.

He probably wouldn't have chosen quite that shade of blue, left to his own devices.

“It's the sky,” Susie announces.

It’s certainly not the Oxford sky, mid-winter, with its heavy steel-grey clouds and constant threat of rain, or snow, or sleet. It must be the Wyoming sky; big and open and fading in her memory. 

He grabs a brush. With music playing and Susie around their feet, the afternoon passes quickly, until they've lost the light and are peering into corners. Peter cleans the brushes while Morse heats baked beans and toasts bread – a poor man's feast accompanied by beer (or milk, for Susie) that tastes as good as any restaurant meal, after their labours.

They potter about their evening routine, but the lounge still smells of wet paint, so after Susie is tucked up in bed they retire to the kitchen. Peter is surprisingly quiet, fiddling with his beer bottle and barely even looking up when Morse lugs through the record player and selects one he knows Peter can't stand.

Peter's gaze is fixed on a small photograph abandoned on the counter. It's one Max took of the Cowley lot at a pub get together that's lost in his memory, the product of time or perhaps too many drinks on the evening in question. He's been meaning to find a frame, one of those little jobs that gets put off and put off. “I suppose I should tell them,” Peter says eventually. It's clear what he's talking about, but selfishly, Morse wants to say no, not yet. He's liked having Peter to himself. But it's been well over a month, and Thursday is getting suspicious.

“Thursday at least. Maybe Strange,” he answers. “Strange is starting to think I'm hiding a girl, with how often I turn down the pub these days.” He means it as a joke, but Peter just looks at him across the table, eyes dark and hooded. He's never been able to tell what he's thinking with that inscrutable stare.

It has been strangely like having a wife. Dinner on the table when he gets home, little girl happy to see him, bringing him whatever toy or project is top of her list for the day, showing it off until he admires it for long enough and she gets bored, toddling off to grab another one, or a story book. She likes him reading to her. Peter says it’s his voice; it works well with the books and he's patient with it, pausing in the right places, letting the words breathe. Peter gets bored, whipping through like the point is to reach the end.

Peter's even taken to ironing his shirts, he thinks with a slight blush. Pulled him back in the house one morning and practically stripped him out of the one he was wearing, saying it was a disgrace, you're a sergeant now Morse, smarten up a bit – and shoved him back out again with shirt still iron-warm on his back. Now he has a pile, every now and then, and he's grown used to crisp cotton against his skin. Thursday had made some side comment about him growing up, and how it had only taken five years for his point to sink in.

It had taken Peter.

But he's not a wife, of course. In ways, he's better, happy to sit up late into the night and discuss cases – not that Morse should, with an outsider, but he can't quite classify Peter as that – and offering actually useful insight. No need to hide the grit of them, he knows what it’s like, he's seen worse. He drinks the same things as well, no need for fancy white wine spritzers, and when the garden's out of control he hacks back the bushes and burns them in a massive pile.

It works, the two of them, in a way he never would have imagined. Better than it did with Strange, when sometimes every noise grated on him like sandpaper on his skin. Better too, than those short days with Monica when they lived a half-merged life, her in and out of their two flats so he never knew what he'd come back to.

It must be the space. The house is big enough that Peter can play his jazz records in the back bedroom and Morse can have opera on in the lounge and neither of them are annoying any neighbours.

“I know having... a kid in the house isn't easy. But if you want to bring someone home...” Peter shrugs. “We'll work it out.”

It honestly hadn't occurred to him, which is probably a little odd in itself. But beyond the obvious, those dates had always been a desperate grab at connection, at companionship, and he doesn't need that now. Not now he can come home and there's Susie to distract him, and Peter to while away the evening hours. He can feel a blush rising, and tries to shrug it off.

“No, it's... you're all right.”


	4. Chapter 4

“I need to get a job.”

Morse brushes toast crumbs from his fingers and takes a gulp of tea. He'd come down to the paper split in two pieces, and grabbed the puzzle page as usual. He hadn't realised Peter was scanning the help wanted section instead of his usual news and sports.

“Oh?”

“Before I talk to Thursday. I can't just turn up and say I've been living on your couch for weeks.”

“You've been in the back bedroom.”

Peter circles an advert in blue biro, but something about the set of his shoulders belies his exasperation. He never has any patience for Morse's jokes before the first cup of tea of the day has sunk in.

“Besides, Jeff – he paid me for my share of the farm before I left, but most of that went on plane tickets back here.”

Morse looks down at the scraps of his toast, uncomfortably aware it's from a loaf Peter bought; that Peter has, to all intents and purposes, been feeding all three of them for most of his time here. Morse just never thinks about food. Before Peter turned up it was all last minute grabs at the shops on the way home as his stomach growled, or something in a pub. Now he comes home and there'll be food in the cupboards, and sometimes he'll make something but more often than not it won't occur to him until Peter drags him to the table and places a plate in front of him. He must want a change – go back to feeding himself and a small child, much cheaper than keeping an extra grown man going on no budget.

“Morse?”

“Hmm?”

“I can slip you a bit of rent then, too. Help with the mortgage. This place must be tight on a sergeant's salary.”

“You want to stay?” It slips out before he thinks about it, before he can register the little flip in his chest.

“Well, I – I can get somewhere, but-”

“No, no, you don't have to.” Peter still shifts, turning the page of the paper until twenty little houses with windows and doors look up from the page. “You should stay,” he forces himself to add. Because if he doesn't make it clear, he thinks – he thinks he might lose it. So maybe it's time to fight for it.

Peter frowns. “Me and Susie-”

“I like Susie.” He likes Peter too, but they've never been the type of friends to admit that. Or maybe he's just not the type of person, full stop. He stares at Peter, and Peter stares right back, chewing his lip. “Give me some rent,” he agrees, not that he really needs it. “Help out with the mortgage, like you said.”

“If you're sure?”

He has to go, on the edge of running late already, but he nods emphatically. “We'll get something put in writing. Later.”

–

It's a slow day at the office for once, and after catching up on paperwork, Morse drafts a rental agreement. It's nothing that would stand up in court if he were to ever need it, cobbled together from bits he remembers from his own numerous agreements, but it sets out basic terms – the right for two to live in the house, utilities included, in return for £3 a week. He doesn't bother with noise requirements or cleanliness specifications, knowing that out of the two of them it's not Peter that needs to be held to a standard. He glances around to check no one is looking, before using a ruler to dot out two long lines. He signs the bottom one as landlord, and blows the ink dry.

–

He stops off on the way home, oddly anxious with the contract burning a hole in his jacket pocket. He grabs fish and chips from the chippie, a couple of bottles of beer from the shop on the corner. He breathes a sigh of relief when he opens the door and there's no enticing aroma drifting from the kitchen.

He swings the bag of food onto the coffee table, and slumps on the sofa. “Dinner,” he says with a smirk at Peter. He's laid out on his stomach, stretched across the carpet as he tries to fix a broken toy train, and Morse finds his gaze resting in the little dip at the base of his back. He shakes his head, and kicks off his shoes.

“Great. Grab some plates, I'm nearly done.”

“It's chips, you don't use a plate.”

“You don't maybe, 'cos you can't be arsed to wash up.”

Morse wanders into the kitchen, returning with a bottle opener and a single plate. “You can be prissy about it, me and Susie will eat them the right way. Newspaper and fingers.” Peter just shrugs, like he knows it's a bad idea, but it's only when they're finishing up, translucent paper balled up and ready for the fire, that Morse notices Susie's smeared grease everywhere. Literally everywhere. From her cheeks to her dress to the coffee table legs.

“You gonna deal with that, then?”

Morse takes a defiant swig of his beer, finishing the bottle. He cracks it down on the table. “Yep. Come on Susie, bath time.”

It can't be too difficult, he thinks, sweeping her into his arms. Bathwater, child in, keep mouth above water, child out. Done. He sets her on the bathroom floor while he runs the taps, and immediately has to move all the bottles up and out of her reach, before chasing her down as she makes a crawling break for freedom while he's distracted with the bubble bath.

Peter appears in the doorway, dish towel from clearing up the grease in the lounge still over his shoulder He smiles down at Morse, crouched next to the tub with one arm submerged, testing the temperature. “They get slippery when wet. And no easier to corral. Give you a hand, this first time?”

Morse looks between child, anchored with one hand, and man. “Yeah, all right cowboy.”

–

The contract eventually gets signed much later on, slightly damp after an impromptu water fight (Susie started it, but Morse is sure he won). Peter pours them both a celebratory whiskey from his good bottle, and they toast the new arrangement.

“Don't suppose you know anyone with a bike?” he asks, after several minutes of silence.

The question is out of left field, but Morse is getting used to rolling with unlikely conversation topics thanks to Susie. It's less usual coming from Peter, but then, it’s been a long day. “Don't think so... what for?”

“For riding, Morse. Cycling, some call it. Was all the rage in the eighteen hundreds, I believe, but I’d rather one where the two wheels are the same size.”

“I’ll keep a lookout.”

“Thanks.”

\--

The situation with Strange and Thursday feels precarious. They’re friendly enough at work - Strange still drops round with the odd cup of tea, Thursday pulls him up and out on the job easily enough - but the invitations have dropped off. He’s aware he’s been distancing himself, that the problem isn’t now them, it’s him - but his loyalty, he realises, sits elsewhere.

Still. He’s not so blessed with friends that he can afford to lose the few he does have. And part of him wonders what could have been, what perhaps could be now. The four of them - maybe Max as well, he’d probably take to Susie - down the pub together, Peter back in his element. He’d always looked at home there, surrounded by people. Morse knows nothing will ever compare to Susie, but he is aware that he’s a poor replacement for the wide circle Peter used to enjoy. 

“When I’ve got a job, I said, I can’t be mooching off-”

“It’s hardly mooching!” He’s washing plates clean of stew Peter made, he’s drinking tea made with milk Peter bought. 

“Morse,” the tone is soft, and it jars enough with the argument to have him pull soapy hands from the water, turn, and lean against the sink. 

“You’ll find something.” 

He knows he will. Peter’s too clever not to. But he’s adamant about not coming back to the police, and he’s tied down with looking after Susie, boxed in by where in the city he can get to by bus. “Leave it much longer, they’ll turn up on the doorstep.” He’s not sure they would, now. Thursday would have once, but they’ve never regained that easy closeness, and he doesn’t look like he needs saving anymore; a few weeks of regular meals pulling him away from the skin and bone end of the spectrum. Strange… maybe.

“Please.”

He wants to give Peter everything. “Another week,” he agrees. “I’m going to bed. I’m on earlies tomorrow.”

“See you in the afternoon, then. I’ll be here.”

\--

It's a grimy sort of day. The wind carries rain like it’s hiding it under its coat, the better to catch you unawares with a faceful. His notepad is getting soggier, ink starting to run, and he fishes in his pockets for a pencil. It’s days like this when he thinks actually, having a constable of his own wouldn’t be so bad. Someone to send out door knocking when the air is more liquid than it should be. 

At least he’s nearly done, and when he gets back to the station he can grab a hot cup of tea.

“Alright, that’ll be all, Mrs Montague.”

She nods at him, arms full of a child of indeterminate gender, and turns to go inside. She’s tugged back, caught fast with her cardigan caught around the handlebar of a bicycle. “Damn, darn, I mean - sorry, officer, just this bleeding bike-”

He untangles her carefully. “In the way?”

“Always,” she agrees over her shoulder, ducking inside as the rain starts to fall properly. It’s got the air of weather settling in for the long haul.

“You wouldn’t be looking to get rid of it, would you?”

She opens the door again. “Are you offering a good price?”

He smiles, which turns into a grimace as a drop of water rolls under his collar. He ducks to look the bike over, not that he knows much about these things. But it seems in decent shape, with no visible rust, at least. “I’ll give you a pound for it.”

She scoffs. “Officer, I thought there’d be a law against the police robbing people blind. I want three pounds or nothing.”

He could say nothing, three pounds is practically extortion, but he’d caught a glimpse of more grubby faces within the house. “Two.” He opens his wallet and checks through. “It’s all I’ve got.” He offers two notes, getting rain dampened. She takes them, slowly and distrustfully, and inspects them carefully.

“Fine. You taking it now, or am I getting caught up in it for the rest of the day?” 

“The latter.”

She grumbles as she heads back inside, and he squelches over to the car.

\--

It’s brightened up by the time he signs off for the evening, and he’s glad, given the diversion he’s got on the way back. To his relief, the bike is exactly where it was this morning, and he sticks a note through the door to let her know he’s taken it.

He swings one leg over and sits. It’s been years since he rode a bike. He remembers learning, Susan lounging on a blanket and giggling as he wobbled round Christchurch meadows time and again. Tony holding the saddle, to begin with, then thankfully retreating to call encouragement from the sidelines as he found his bike-legs.

It seems a long time ago as he presses down on the pedal, surprised by the lurch forward. His other foot skims along the road kicking up gravel, and he stops to catch his bearings.

It’s easy, he tells himself firmly. Mind over matter - riding a bike, it’s the one thing you never forget. He presses down on the other pedal to start, veering dangerously leftward and then overcompensating, but manages to bring the other foot up, press down again, and it’s easier now the bike is moving. The balance sorts itself out. He glides, road eaten up beneath the wheels, and it’ll never be like driving - too exposed for that - but he’s shocked by how quickly landmarks fly past. How freeing it is, how loose the breeze across his face feels.

“Peter!” he calls, wheeling it through the gate and up the path. He’s slightly out of breath from the exercise. “Got you a present!”

“A present?” Peter emerges from the little alleyway that leads round to the back garden. He’s got mud on his knees, and a jumper tied around his waist. “Why on earth are you getting me - is that a bike?”

“Found one going spare.” He pulls at his right ear, wondering suddenly if it’s too extravagant, if he should have just told Peter and let him sort his own troubles. But it was right there. Serendipity.

“Yeah? How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing; they were glad to get rid of it.” Not lies, he justifies. Nothing wrong with bending the truth to suit your needs, and he wants Peter to be happy, not feeling indebted. Peter fixes him with one of those unconvinced stares he’s honed over years of questioning suspects. He wonders how the cows felt about those, if they caved or just stared back.

“Really?”

“It was in their way, kept getting caught on the way in and out of the house.” Peter takes the handlebars, and drops into a crouch. “Do you know about bikes?” asks Morse.

“Just the basics. I’ll stick a bit of oil on these chains, but it’s in pretty good nick.” He looks up. Morse is suddenly glad he’s got the excuse of exercise, because the sun catches making Peter’s hair gleam, and he smiles that special smile he’s been pulling out lately, and he can feel a flush spreading across his face, up and over the ears. “Thanks Morse.” 

He pulls again at one earlobe and shrugs awkwardly. “Kind of enjoyed riding it back here. Years since I was on a bike.”

“Yeah?”

Morse ignores the question. “Are you going to tell me what you wanted it for now?”

Peter nods, and leans the bike against the wall of the house. He wipes his hands on a rag, but the mud is dried on, and Morse finds himself watching instead the way it’s caked under his nails, dug into the lines of his hands and spelling out the story of the work they’ve done. Peter heads into the house, and Morse follows, dumping his coat over a kitchen chair.

"Here." Peter shoves the newspaper at him, and he takes it, scanning the page. It's the job section.

"What?"

"There." A finger jabs, before he turns away to put the kettle on. Morse looks at the half-full teapot on the side, steam still rising from the spout, and classifies it as displacement activity. He peers more closely at where Peter pointed.

"Postman?" The line of Peter's back is tense, rooting in the fridge for milk, and he realises he needs to sound supportive. "Sounds fun. Er, fresh air." Perhaps just enough of an edge of working in the fields, that he must be missing now he's cooped up in Oxford's cobblestones again. But not enough to drown him in memories.

Peter collapses into the chair opposite, accidentally kicking him in the foot. "I know it's not... police work."

Privately he thinks it is a bit of a waste - Peter has a methodical brain, one that works well with his that twists and turns, to get to the truth of things. But he'll make a good postie too, working out an efficient route, all bases covered. He'd just hoped as the weeks went on that maybe he'd finally reconsider. Come back. That they could have spent the days side by side again, needling each other no doubt, but - well. It would be different now.

Besides, somehow he can't imagine Peter holding court with the little old ladies on his route, dispensing packages while leaning sardonically against a bike in trouser clips. Cigarette dangling.

"This is what you wanted it for?"

"Sort of. We can't afford a car, and I figured a bike would give me a wider range - there's not a lot going in walking distance of here."

We. The breath catches in his throat, and Morse studies the newspaper advert carefully, despite having already read every line.

"You should go for it." A thought occurs to him. "What about Susie?" 

He’d never thought childcare would be such a top concern for him. But he's out all day, and with Peter getting a job too - she's too young for school. What age do children start nursery? Can you even get babysitters that come all day, every day? Surely that would wipe out any pay a postie would bring in.

"Oh. Uh... well the hours are early, if I get it. Five until nine, or earlier if I finish the round quicker."

“Oh?”

“I thought… well, I thought maybe you could keep an eye on her until I get back.” Peter fiddles with a dirty butter knife in the sink, and it gives Morse a chance to swallow. It sounds a lot like co-parenting, and that’s a lot. A few weeks ago he couldn’t even communicate with Susie, and now Peter trusts him to what? Take sole responsibility for her? Is willing to leave the thing most precious to him in Morse’s hands - hands that time and again end up battered and bruised, and people leave him, because if they don’t -  _ they  _ end up battered -

“Just, keep her alive. You know, no sharp objects or falling from great heights. You wouldn’t need to, to do anything, breakfast or getting her dressed or whatever. I’ll do that, obviously-”

“Peter,” Morse interrupts, with one of his hands migrating to land on Peter’s arm. He feels warm with the work he’s been doing in the garden, the weak sunlight still trapped in his skin. “I just-” he frowns, unsure how to put it. Perhaps the only way is the stark way. “I’m surprised you trust me with her.”

“Why wouldn’t I trust you?”

Morse looks at Susie’s dark hair, bent in concentration over paper and crayons. There are no words, not even any discernible pictures, just lines of different colours that bleed into one another in a dizzy whirl. He can relate. 

“She’s all you have. And I’m me.”

“The one person I know who goes to the end of the world for people. Who did it for me. When I couldn’t.”

They don’t discuss that night. He’d wondered how much Peter had even remembered of their meeting in the pub - he’d been so drunk. But it seems he does recall. Well. Suppose it’s difficult to let go of memories like that.

“Please, Morse. Couple of hours, she’ll be asleep most of it. Tell you what, we can have a trial run-”

“No,” he interrupts, and rushes to continue when he sees the look on Peter’s face. “No need for a trial,” he clarifies. After all, what have they been doing these past few weeks? For all intents and purposes, he’s been more hands on with Susie’s care than his dad ever was with him. “It’s a good idea,” he hears himself saying. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He hands the paper back, but it feels like something bigger has been settled than whether Peter should call the number printed in black and white. “Good luck.”


	5. Chapter 5

Peter gets the job, because of course he does. He’s young and fit, so compared to the other posties in these parts he’s practically an Olympian. The manager in the sorting office sees how easily he can haul mail sacks and puts him down for that first thing, followed by a route around Jericho. Peter shows Morse the map he’s been given, and his patch covers perhaps eight miles, nearly twelve with the back and forth to the house added in.

He also shows Morse the uniform, and he really wants to laugh. He forces himself to, because there’s something very weird about the way his stomach squirms and his mouth goes dry when Peter models it with a grin, and he doesn’t think that’s something he can let show. So he chuckles instead, and reaches for a limp insult that fails to hit the mark.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Peter asks, misreading him entirely. “I can still-”

“No, no. It’s fine.” Susie is in bed already, but he wishes she was still up, hands twirling in the banister rails so they had a distraction. “Really.”

Peter stares at him for a beat longer, but finally nods. “If you’re sure. I suppose I better be getting to bed.”

It’s barely nine, but Peter will have to be up at half four to get to the sorting office for the start of his shift. He heads to brush his teeth, but Morse stays sitting on the stairs. He’s never really taken this viewpoint on the house before, despite the number of times he’s turned the corner to find Susie crouched here. Even Peter sits here sometimes, waiting for Morse to come out of the bathroom. He digs his fingers into the carpet.

“You staying there all night?”

His head snaps up. Peter’s in his pajamas, one hand on the door to his room.

“No, just - thinking.” He scrambles to his feet. “ Night,” he says quickly, trotting down to the living room. He pours a measure of whiskey, but he’s too restless for the sofa. He almost wishes for a hell of a case, something to take over his mind until he’s thinking of nothing else. Instead he traces the twelve-mile route in his head. 

Sandwiches. He’ll make Peter some sandwiches.

\--

He hears Peter get up in the morning, the muffled sounds as he tries to be quiet but also not turn on any lights. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even turn on his own lamp until the front door has latched and Peter’s had enough time to make it down the street. Then he flicks the switch, and winces in the sudden light. Oh god. This is it. He’s officially responsible for Susie.

He creeps out of bed, careful not to wake her, because that does seem the sensible way to get through this. He nudges her door open to check on her, and sure enough she’s dead to the world. He tiptoes downstairs and sets the kettle boiling.

It feels like a long shift. He’s washed, dressed and breakfasted even before the sun starts to rise, and he’s yawning into his second pot of tea when he hears familiar babbling sounds from upstairs.

“Morning,” he says, taking them two at a time and poking his head around the door. Susie is up, Mr Ted clutched in one hand. He’s clearly interrupted a conversation in mid-flow. 

“Morz,” she announces, stretching upwards, and he takes his cue to pick her up. They head downstairs, and he finds the special little cup for her juice as she sticks her hand in the butter he left out, and - this isn’t so unlike any other morning. There’s a gap, of course, where he should be bumping into Peter and isn’t, but otherwise it’s much the same. He wipes her palm with the dish cloth. Susie doesn’t seem particularly concerned over the lack of her father either.

He makes her breakfast, because maybe ‘keep her alive’ was the baseline, but he is able to work the toaster.

“Morse?!”

The door bangs open and he jumps, jam splattering on the table. He turns just in time to see a dark whirl speed into the kitchen. 

“Morning baby girl,” Peter gathers her up, despite how she stretches trying to reach her toast. He’s flushed from the ride home, his hair tousled by the wind _._ “Made it,” he gasps, with a glance at the clock. “Eight thirty, you’ve-”

“Got to go. Right.” He grabs his coat and his papers, and stops in the doorway. Peter looks _happy._

“Morse?”

“Right.”

\--

They see each other less, now. It’s a rush every morning, and an early turn-in most nights, but Peter seems looser, freer, so he can’t bring himself to begrudge the odd hours. And it does work. They cross paths at the door, Morse sometimes halfway out of it if something has held Peter up, handing Susie over like a baton at the gate. But it works.

“Tomorrow night,” Peter says one evening, in the gap between Morse coming home and him heading to bed. “I don’t have to work the next day. You should see if Strange is free.”

Morse chews his pork chop. “All right,” he agrees. It’s a miracle they’ve made it this far really. Oxford isn’t the biggest town, and yet Peter’s not bumped into anyone who might spill the beans. He thinks of what this might look like, if it came out accidently, like he’s got Peter’s hidden away as some kind of - 

It's past time, is the point. Even if it means one less evening curling up in front of Peter’s new television. He sits on the sofa with Peter to see the screen better, and Susie sits between them until one or both of them muster up the energy to drag her upstairs and convince her into bed. She’s in a phase of wanting to stay up, even when she’s floppy with exhaustion, and it’s turned bedtime into a negotiation of sorts. He has a feeling he’s building useful skills. One day they’ll come in handy on the job.

“Great,” says Peter, poking at his green beans. “Do you think…”

“What?”

“It’s been a long time.”

Three months. Or maybe that’s not what he means. Maybe he means with Thursday, and with Strange. Three years, and a changed life.

“Pretty sure they’ll still like you. Pull out some of that old Jakes charm.”

“You finally admitting it, Morse?”

“You won me over in the end, didn’t you?”

It might have taken a few years, a few near death experiences and finally more than a few letters, but he had. He’d got there; set up shop in Morse’s life, to the point if he ever left… well. Every day that passes he becomes less sure that wound would heal.

Peter scoops up more mashed potato. “Guess I did.”

-

He wasn’t sure whether to tell Thursday and Strange when inviting them to the pub, the practicalities of prior warning warring with having to come clean to a complicated situation on his own. In the end the decision had been taken out of his hands by a last minute purse-snatch; with robbery short-staffed, somehow he was sent out to deal with it, and by the time he gets back to the station they’re all grabbing their coats. 

“We wondered if you’d gone teetotal on us Morse,” Thursday ribs, lighting his pipe as they walk. “Strange here figured you were hiding some girl, but you’ve never been that good at hiding them before.”

“No, no AA, no girl.” Well, one girl. But a two and a half year old doesn’t count. He holds his breath as they enter the pub, ducking under the low door beam, but it’s still quiet, just beginning to gather the after work crowd. No Peter, no Susie.

“Right, first round on me,” Strange announces. He should say something. He should say, get an extra beer. And an orange juice. But the words lock themselves away in his mouth, and he just strips off his coat, taking the bench seat under the window.

A gust of cool air turns his attention back to the door.

“Morz!”

Susie runs and jumps, scrambling up into his lap with knees narrowly missing important parts. He steadies her with a smile, keeping the sharp bits under control, and looks up into the shocked faces of Thursday and Strange. They’re so focused on him, they haven’t even noticed the lanky man standing next to them.

Who clears his throat.

“ _Jakes?_ ”

“Wotcha, Strange. Congrats on making DS.” He claps the gaping sergeant on the shoulder, then nods across at Susie and Morse. “This is Susie, my daughter. Morse has been letting us crash at his.”

 _Crash_ . Morse stifles a laugh. The word is so incongruous and not just as American slang in an Oxford boozer, but because last weekend, they painted the box room rainbow colours, ready for Susie to move in and have her own space. Peter had drawn a half-decent farm mural complete with cows. It’s permanent, and it’s there - just like Peter’s television in the living room, his bike chained to the fence, Susie’s artistic attempts on the back corridor wall, and her toys strewn across the floors. The bookcases that hold a mixture of classics, poetry, crime thrillers and _The Very Hungry Caterpillar._ They’re not _crashing_. They’re not even guests. Not now.

“It’s good to see you again.” Thursday leans over and pumps Peter’s hand. “Here for a visit? When did you land?”

Morse flicks his eyes up towards Peter; they’d not discussed how to cover this. In the commotion, the bartender has brought the drinks over to them, and he curls his fingers around one of the pints. 

“Back, actually, to make a go of it. Just me and Susie.” Peter sits on the bench next to Morse, reaching out, and Morse shifts Susie over into his arms. “Hope passed,” he adds quietly.

“I’m sorry to hear that Jakes.” Thursday clasps his shoulder briefly, before dropping into his own chair. “That’s tough. Especially with a little one.”

“Yeah, well.”

Silence reigns, broken only by the odd gulp as they each remember they have a pint in front of them, and use it as a distraction. Morse catches sight of Peter’s bag and bends to root through it, coming up with paper and crayons.

“If you ever need help, with her,” Thursday nods across at Susie. “Win misses the kids as little ones. We keep hoping Joan will settle-” He seems to realise what he’s said, sat across from two old flames of his daughter. “Anyways,” he coughs. “I’m sure she’d be happy to watch her for an hour or two.”

“Er, thanks Sir.”

“Fred, now.”

Peter’s face twists, and Morse can’t help a snort. It earns him a sideways glare, and a pointed look as he opens his mouth. “Actually, Morse has turned out to be quite the parent.”

“Really?” laughs Strange. “Can’t see him caring for a plant. No offence, matey.” 

Morse shifts. He’d have said the same himself three months ago. How quickly he’s fallen into a life that’s not really his! One that swings on the absence of a much-loved mother. A quirk of fate that took Hope too soon, deprived Peter and Susie, and somehow catapulted his existence upwards. He gestures with the crayon box, covering his discomfort with an affronted look. 

“Keeps her alive every morning,” Peter adds, and to Thursday and Strange it must sound like scraping by, but between the two of them, keeping her alive has become a kind of code word for jam-smeared fingers and new artworks stuck to the fridge with tape. “While I’m out at work. I got a job as a postie, my route’s ‘round Jericho.”

Strange’s eyes narrow. “How long did you say you’d been back?”

“Few weeks,” Morse interjects. He can feel a need to manage, mitigate, itching below his skin. And it’s not technically a lie, after all - thirteen is still a few. Is there any upper limit on ‘a few’? A thousand would be ‘a few’ in comparison to a million, after all. “Just time enough to get sorted.”

Strange’s face is a picture. “And turn you into some kind of dad of the year, apparently.”

“Now,” Thursday claps him on the shoulder. “I always knew you’d make a fine father figure, Morse. Expected it to be a bit later, mind, when you had one of your own, but a bit of practice never hurt no one. I’ll get another round in, shall I?”

The conversation drifts with the new round onto safer ground; first the latest cases, and it doesn’t take much to get coppers to kick over old war stories either, so it carries on from there - Strange and Thursday both think there’s a lot to catch Peter up on, and seem to delight in regaling Peter with the weird and wonderful happenings of his old stomping ground. Strange tells the story of the tiger, and Morse hides his smile at Peter’s poor surprise face in his new pint. He borrows one of Susie’s crayons and draws a passable big cat in the corner of the paper.

Susie gets grumpy eventually though, pushing her colouring book to the floor and gristling. It’s only when Peter dips to pick it up that Morse catches sight of the clock; it’s almost ten, practically the middle of the night for the way they’re living now, and certainly too late for Susie to be up and about. He’s surprised they’ve not got a few dirty looks in the time they’ve been sitting here. He nudges Peter as he straightens, and points at the time. “We should get going.”

“‘Course, she’ll be wanting her bed.” Thursday pushes his chair back with a scrape, and pulls Peter up into a surprised hug. Morse rises too, throwing on his jacket and gathering up a sleepy Susie. She drops her head onto his shoulder, and he rocks her slightly from side to side. 

“Don’t be a stranger, you hear?” says Thursday. “And if you ever get tired of that postie lark, just you come talk to me. We’ll sort something out.”

“Thanks, Sir.”

“I told you, it’s Fred.”

“Jakes,” Strange shakes his hand. “It’s been good to catch up. If Morse starts driving you mad, you’re welcome to kip at mine for a spell.” He runs his eyes over Morse oddly, and he shifts Susie up a bit. He’s not going to drop her, he’s got a good enough grip. “See you tomorrow, matey.”

“Yeah. Good night, Sir. Strange.”

\--

They’re silent most of the way home. Morse’s arms ache, but Susie is asleep and to move her would likely wake her. He locks his grip instead, one hand tight around the other wrist, and lets Peter open and shut the garden gate, fumble for keys and unlock the door. He heads upstairs and lowers Susie into bed fully dressed. It’ll do for one night. 

When he heads back down, Peter has put a record on in the lounge - something soft, and faintly jazzy, but not enough to make his ears hurt. He’s poured two whiskeys, too, before slumping on the sofa. Morse is already feeling the beer, verging right on the tipping point between tipsy and drunk, so swirls the amber liquid around his glass rather than drinking it.

He sits next to Peter.

“This is – Morse, what are we doing?”

He could act ignorant, but he knows what Peter's talking about. The routines that have become so comfortable, the way Susie turns to Morse now like he's a second parent, the sitting up of an evening chatting, even the way Morse has migrated from the chair over to the sofa, even though the old cushions dip in the middle and tip the two of them together. Tonight… brought it home. What had seemed weird had faded, become normal, and only in the light of Strange and Thursday had it switched back, made him wonder what, exactly, this is.

The warmth of a hand lands on his knee. The heat travels, onwards and upwards, until it disperses as blush on his cheeks. The hand stays.

“I don't know,” he answers, half-honestly. He knows what they could be. It could be easy to tip closer, at least for him - although even in his mind he skitters away from too much thought of it. Half intrigued, half… scared. If he’s truthful about it. It would leave them alone. Friendless, except for each other. And Susie, too young to have any conceptions.

In one way it's a heady thought, the three of them against the world. But he’s old enough now to know a life lived on the outside is a dangerous one.

Peter straightens and shifts sideways, close enough to touch. Morse, slumped as he is, has to tip his head back ever so slightly to keep looking in his eyes. It could be an excuse to drop the gaze. He looks up.

“This feels like home.”

Morse nods.

“I didn't know what that was, until – until Hope.”

“I didn't know,” Morse echoes, but he can't say until anything, because the truth is he didn't know it until he came home on a cold January evening to every light in this house blazing, stew on the stove and a little girl offering her teddy bear. He hadn't known until he felt relief so strong he could feel it leaking out with every breath.

“I didn't think I'd find it again.”

“Is it... that?”

He's putting a lot on Peter, he knows, but this doesn't feel like it did with Monica. Or even with Joan, who he loved but knew little of her everyday. Peter is under his skin, he's in his life, and he doesn't know if this different feeling means this is true love or if it's just two people who can coexist.

“Yeah? Maybe.”

“How would we know?”

Peter takes his hand from Morse's knee and puts it on his arm instead, sliding down until he can fiddle with the cuff of his sleeve. It's well-starched, thanks to Peter. The trail he took tingles in his wake, like it's left a mark. “I guess we'd...” Peter makes a strange sort of head tilt – half nod, half shake – and darts his eyes to the ceiling like the moulding is the most interesting thing he's ever seen.

Bixby. 

Wilding. 

He's thought about it before, what it might be to kiss a man, but it'd always been a passing whim. A fantasy that faded as quickly as it had risen, no need to worry, no need to investigate, not when there was Kay or Emma or Claudine. He hasn't let himself think about kissing Peter, and thinking about it now – right here, close enough to touch – embarrasses him. Much easier, in the end, to act – to lean forward, slide his hands around the front of Peter's shirt and pull him in, fabric crumpling. To nudge his head up, and set his lips to Peter's.

It feels much as kissing always does, but then Peter moves his mouth, deepening the kiss, and the floor falls out from under him. He's embarrassed anyway, of the way his hands clutch tighter, but it must be okay because Peter has one hand palmed softly on his jawline, tip of his finger just brushing at Morse's earlobe, and it draws him back in as soon as they stop and gasp for breath. He's not sure how long passes, just knows it's been long enough that his neck is cricking.

Not – not much of a question any more.

He pulls back. Peter looks well kissed, mouth wet and slightly open, and the sight makes desire curl in his stomach. His hands have migrated, without direction, and now know the shape of Peter's hips and the feel of his belt, and it seems forbidden, to know these things about another man.

“I think it is,” Peter says hoarsely.

“Is what?”

“You and me. Susie. This house. Home.”

He's never been one for big speeches, preferring to show his affection in actions. But Peter has been drawing words out of him since day one, in their bickering back and forth, then their sea-bound letters, and now, here, mornings over toast and evenings in this lounge. “I think you're right. I want you to stay here. We can make it work, I don't know how, but we're both pretty clever, we'll work it out.”

“Yeah?”

He darts in quick, unable to resist pressing a kiss to smiling lips, to note how that curve changes the feel of it. He wants to know everything. “Yeah.”

Peter's hands settle warm and large on his back. They want to pull him closer, and Morse lets him, flushing as those hands drag him over onto Peter’s lap. It would be too much, too soon, to invite him upstairs – never mind Susie sleeping in the back room, not quite used to her rainbow room during night hours yet, he could come to Morse's, he could never leave if he didn't want to – but it's too new for all that despite everything. 

The sofa it is.

He's never been above someone like this. Spread out on a bed, yes, but straddling -

He knows he's flushed red, but Peter just sweeps his thumbs over both cheeks like it wipes it away, and brings him down for another kiss. One that hides the embarrassment in a haze of heat.

“Wait-” says Peter. He leans his forehead against Morse's. One hand lies at his side, but the other still grips on Morse's hip, holding him in place.

“What is it?”

“I – What am - I can't-”

It feels like a cold shower. He’s right. What are they doing? Two men can't make a home, much as it might feel possible here within these walls. They'll never walk down the street hand in hand, they'll never be able to go out on dates, or get married, or do any of the things that map out a life together.

“Right.”

He's awkwardly aware he's still in Peter's lap, that this isn't something they can pass off as something else. They haven't drunk enough to blame the booze, not really. Maybe – maybe it's the proximity. Maybe this is why men don't live together the way women do. Maybe he was just lucky, with Strange, that there was enough grating annoyance to keep their friendship at that base level, that if it hadn't been for his coffee slurping, and his damn trombone -

He shifts, goes to stand, but the hand on his hip tightens.

“Morse,” Peter whispers, and he stops. Peter is crying.

“It's okay,” he says, though it isn't. Peter will go now, he knows. Now that they slipped into this, tried it and failed. It’s not okay now, but it will be eventually. This is what people do after all. They leave. 

“I'm sorry.”

“It's-”

“I miss her so much.” Peter crumples, and suddenly what they were doing five minutes ago doesn't seem to matter any more. He hunches forward, and Morse catches his head in his arms, cradling him like he did, once or twice, with Joyce as a child. “She – and I've just-”

The rest of the sentence is cut off, and Morse feels wet tears soaking through his shirt. “It's okay,” he repeats, anxiously, knowing it can't be, that nothing can fix Peter's broken world. He wishes he could. He'd turn it all back if that was an option. Let him go back to Wyoming, let them both walk out of his life if it meant they'd get to keep her, Hope. If it would take away the pain on Peter’s face..

He hadn't forgotten. But Peter has seemed so... so fine. That it wasn’t _there_ every day. How could he be, though? He probably kept his grief for office hours, and Morse had never known. “It's okay,” he says again. “It's okay.”

He puts Peter to bed that night when he's all cried out, pushes him lightly towards the back bedroom with a tear-stained face and arms that reach out for his sleeping daughter. That was one mercy. That she'd slept through, not come looking for a glass of water or crying out with nightmares as she did sometimes. 

He goes to bed but doesn't sleep much. He keeps his door cracked and one ear listening out, but as dawn rises the house is still quiet.

He changes his tear-dampened shirt for a fresh one, neatly pressed. He ties his tie in the mirror downstairs, wolfs down his toast and dithers over taking Peter a cup of tea. In the end, it feels too much like bothering, and he just closes the front door behind himself with a quiet snick.


	6. Chapter 6

He figures it’s up to Peter to decide what he wants. Morse won’t kick the two of them out whatever happens, but if Peter decides to leave… well, he’ll deal with it. Or if they stay, he’s not expecting anything. That taste… it’s enough to have his heart racing any time he thinks of it, but… he gets it. Sort of. He can’t possibly understand, but he gets it. Why Peter can’t. Why they shouldn’t.

So it’s on Peter.

But day after day, Peter doesn’t leave. And gradually Morse stops walking on eggshells and starts walking on hard boiled eggs instead, and then there are no eggs at all and it’s (almost) like it always was, light, bubbling relief working its way through his veins.

Life carries on, and he was right about Peter needing to get out. Whether it’s the job or the new company, he seems more alive than ever. He even suggests an evening out down the dance hall like they’re still in their twenties, slicking his hair back in that old style that evokes workplace rivalries, but smiling at Morse like he does any evening at the kitchen table. It makes something pang, inside - confusion, happiness and longing all balled up into something he can't quite parse, and drowns instead in lukewarm beer. He stands in a corner next to Strange, who shuffles awkwardly along to music Morse doesn’t know while Peter dances. 

He’s never been one for dancing, but as he watches Peter spin a laughing blonde, he wishes he could.

They pick Susie up the next morning from the Thursday house, Morse on chauffeur duty and Peter being shepherded inside, because it’s his day off and Susie is halfway through her breakfast so he may as well have a cup of tea. He leaves them both there, driving off to the station with his boss in the passenger seat, and grunts to Thursday’s questioning of how the night went until he leaves it alone. The one saving grace is a clearly hungover Strange, slumped over his desk, when they reach the station.

But otherwise they continue as they were. Before that brief interlude of hands on hips and the feel of a leather belt, that still ghosts over his fingertips when he’s not careful to forget.

The sofa now is where they watch television. Nothing more. 

He suggests renovating Peter’s room, finally sorting out the flaking paint and the carpet with the stain in one corner. Peter shrugs and dithers until the weather is warm enough that it’s time for outside work instead, and eventually, Morse stops asking.

\--

“I want it,” Peter says out of nowhere one evening. They’re both drinking more heavily than they have in months, a bad case on Morse’s end and a new colleague on Peter’s. Peter’s words are directed more at the bottom of his glass than Morse though, as if it’s easier to say things that way, and that tips him off that this is something more than ‘hand me the newspaper’.

Morse glances at him questioningly, and tops them both off before turning the whiskey bottle in his hands, thumbnail catching on the label. 

“But I don’t know if I can.”

He’s staring now, that low, dark gaze he gets sometimes. He thinks it’s a look that prey knows well, but Peter pulls it out when he wants to be listened to,  _ really _ , when he needs Morse to work out what he’s saying in the spaces between words.

It’s a look that sets a prickle running over Morse’s skin. That raises the hair on his arms until he’s on full alert. It’s a look that flashes him back to a little too much beer and a little too little caution, spread-legs on the sofa and blood rising.

He shrugs, willing it down. “All right. This - you, me - we’re more than that. None of this is…” he casts around for a suitable phrase as he gestures at the ceiling, the walls, “under discussion. We’ll carry on as we were. And if you ever…” he trails off again, catching the way Peter looks up, out of the corner of his eye. It makes it harder, but he can’t let the door close because he was too awkward to say something. “If you ever,” he repeats firmly, “I’ll be here.”

“You’d - wait, for me?”

“Guess so.” He tips his glass to his lips, forcing himself to moderate the intake. One sip. Two. Glass down.

“That’s…”

It’s love. He can finally admit it to himself, but there’s no way he’ll put it out there now, no way he’ll dump that on Peter on top of everything else. He just smiles, and gives up, finishing his drink. It’s late even for him, and he stands.

“I’m off to bed.”

“Right. Uh, good night.”

He’s not sure what makes him do it, but as he leaves the room, his hand trails ever so softly over Peter’s hair.

\--

Summer creeps in like it’s not sure it’s invited, then hits them properly overnight. The kind of weather where you wake up sweating and sweat through breakfast, lunch and dinner, to return to bed, limbs splayed but still sticky and uncomfortable. Peter buys a paddling pool, ostensibly for Susie to splash around in, but when dusk falls they manoeuvre it inside and sit in the living room with cold beers and their feet dunked in cool water. It becomes a new, guilty pleasure to watch television with their trousers rolled up their shins.

“We should go away,” Peter says one evening after padding back from the kitchen in his bare feet. He’s left pool water footprints on the floorboards. Morse accepts the new beer and clinks it against Peter’s.

“Away?”

“A holiday. I’ve got a week or two’s worth building up at work. Can you swing it with Bright?”

Thursday has in fact been making noises about locking him out of the station if he doesn’t use some of the leave he has accumulated, but he just hums. 

“Somewhere on the coast. Susie’s never seen the sea, except from the plane.”

A holiday. Away with Peter and Susie, away from this safe haven and dumped somewhere else. “You go. I’ll look after things here.”

“Things?” asks Peter. “What things need looking after?”

“You know, things. The house. Work.”

Peter snorts. “You’ll burn out if you never take a week off. And this house has been standing for sixty years, it can cope without you for a few days.”

“You’ll have more fun without me. I could do your room for you, so you don’t have to put up with paint fumes.”

Peter puts his beer down on the table and swivels on the sofa. He folds his legs up, and the toes of his right foot nudge beneath Morse’s thigh. He forces himself not to look. “You got something against ice creams and sand?”

“I’m not keen on the two together.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It’ll look odd, won’t it?”

“Odd?”

He fiddles with his beer bottle. “You know. You, me.”

Peter sighs, and leans back into the cushions. He looks at the ceiling as he says, “yeah, probably. Or maybe it’ll look like one cousin helping out another, I don’t know.”

Morse nods. “It’s better if I don’t come.”

\--

A week later, he walks home with his jacket and tie already slung over one arm. It’s been warm for long enough now that the bricks of the houses have soaked it up, and they bleed it out again into the evenings. The pavements are shiny with half-melted tarmac, enough that his shoes stick and release with tacky clicks at every step. He gets splashed by a water fight spilling out into the streets, and just sighs in relief. He briefly considers standing still a while, arms spread wide to increase the odds of another hit.

The air is heavy, dragged down and sluggish with city smells. It’s keeping the crime rate low, but that just means long days stuck in a hot office instead of out where there might be a slim hope of catching a breeze. He rounds the corner and there is the house. He’s been thinking about this moment all day.

He moves the gate with his fingertips, metal a fraction away from burning. Their front door is open to encourage air flow, and he walks right through, blind in the dimness, and out into the garden where Peter is sprawled in the shade. 

“Morz,” calls Susie from her paddling pool. He heads over to drop a kiss on her hair, then collapses onto the grass. It’s slightly damp from her splashing, but not enough to convince him to move.

“Long day?”

“Ugh.”

“Here.”

A brochure lands on his stomach, and he holds it up to read without getting up.  _ Bournemouth.  _ He thought he’d settled it, but he should have known Peter gave in too easily. They’re similar that way, ready to hold on until the ends of the earth when they think they’re right.

“I thought-”

“I got two rooms. The landlady was very understanding when I said I was a single father, my cousin coming to help out.”

“Peter…”

“Next week, Morse. Just book the damn time off, will you?”

He can’t see Peter, sitting behind him and shrouded anyway, out of the sun. But he sounds tired, and in all honesty, some sea air and a ninety-nine sounds pretty good right now. He drops the brochure over his eyes as a sun shield. “Yeah, all right.”

\--

They take the train. Partly because Susie has been asking to go on one since  _ The Little Engine that Could _ , and partly because the only other option is to try and borrow a car from the station. Morse had lightly regretted the decision when he saw the pile of essentials in the hallway.

The trip down is almost fun, though, and it's worth battling through the heat of the platform and the crowds on the streets, for when they finally break through and there’s the beach. Golden sand and glinting, blinding sunlight on water. The breeze is stronger here and fresh with salt; it carries the smell of frying fish and hot, sugary dough. The sea.

“What do you want to do first?”

He turns, and Peter’s grinning at him. It makes the corners of his own lips turn up. “Dump these,” he says, lifting his share of the bags slightly, “and then get out there.” He tilts his head to the stretching sand.

“Sounds like a fine plan. Susie, one more stop to the sea!”

\--

The beach is crowded, but they squeeze their way in and manage to lay out a couple of towels. Morse takes off his shoes and socks. He’s wearing Peter’s shorts after meeting up in the hotel corridor still in his usual wear; he was promptly lent a pair and sent back to change. The sensation of sunlight on his shins and feet feels strangely vulnerable.

Peter, of course, is also in shorts. He’s swapped his shirt for a t-shirt too, but that also comes off within seconds of sitting down. Morse eyes the line where his tan ends. A farmer’s tan, they call it, neck and lower arms burnished brown, but now it’s come from mornings cycling the post route and afternoons in the garden with Susie.

He’d burn to a crisp. He’s packed some sun cream, and slathers it on now. The smell is astringent, and Peter looks at him and laughs at the way he’s smeared white, reaching over to catch a stray spot on his ear and rub it in. His face freezes. His fingers falter and drop away.

Morse wishes he’d come closer. They can’t, but he wishes he would. That he could feel those fingers on his skin for more than a fleeting touch.

He looks to the sea, instead - a safer point of focus. The waves are small and dotted with people. “I’ve never swum in the sea.”

Peter hums. “Me neither. There was a lake, not far from the farm. Hope used to drag us all out there the first day of sunshine, then as often as she could after that.”

Morse keeps his eyes ahead, watches a young couple swing a little boy by the arms. “She liked to swim?”

“Loved it. His little water baby, Jeff used to call her. She was always in and out of the river in Oxford.” There’s a pause, and then, “did you? Swim in the river?”

Morse scratches his ear, remembering one chilly dawn, the jump and fall and shock of cold water under Magdalen bridge. A silly tradition really, but he’s glad he did take the leap. By the same time next year, Susan had left him and he’d sunken beneath depression. The year after that, he was off in the signals. “Not often. Did the May Day jump once.”

Peter scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Bloody students.”

“You never did, then?”

“Bit of summer stuff I guess, but no, never risked breaking all my bones to jump into frigid water as the sun came up. Not that they’d have let me, you lot with your special worlds and locked gates.” He glances sideways. Morse catches it from the corner of his eye, but he’s not upset.

“It was never that great on the inside either. You don’t belong unless your great-great-grandfather was also a Lonsdaleon.” Morse leans his head back. It’s hot in the full sun, and his hair is sticking to the back of his neck. Peter’s curls at his brow. “I wonder if Susie will be like Hope.”

“A swimmer?” 

He nods.

“She likes the paddling pool enough.”

The water beckons, cool and shining and only metres away. “Let’s see, shall we?”

\--

They exist on fish and chips, ice creams, hot donuts, and the pie shop round the corner, with its cheap prices and large portions. The food isn’t as nice as Peter makes, and the strip lights and formica tables not as cosy as their kitchen, but it’s worth it for the rest of it - long days spent with Peter and Susie, sand between toes and salt-crusted skin. They head out early each morning, walking the sand, and as other holiday-goers turn up they stake out their patch with rented deckchairs. Afternoons are for arcades, a break from the sun, then a barefoot run down to the sea for a last dip before dinner.

After the first night, they give up on leaving Susie asleep in Peter’s room on her own, and instead one of them will venture out during bath time to procure a bottle of wine and sometimes a stick of rock they can bash into splinters. They sit cross-legged on Peter’s bed, Susie asleep on the other, and drink out of toothbrush glasses while playing cards.

“Fish.”

“It’s  _ Go  _ Fish.”

“In America, maybe, but my mum taught me Fish. Either way, take a card. Sevens?”

“It’s please may I have all your: sevens.”

“Why would I say six extra words?”

“It’s teaching manners.”

Morse smirks. “Too late for me.”

“Not for Susie.”

“Who’s conked out. Sevens?”

Peter grudgingly hands over the seven of diamonds, and Morse tucks it into his hand with a grin. “ _ Please _ , Peter, if you would be so kind, if you could find it in your heart, could I, possibly, relieve you of any twos you may have in your possession?” 

Peter chucks three twos at him. “Tosser.”

“Peter!” Morse gasps sarcastically, leaning back on one elbow until he’s sprawled with his feet on Peter’s pillow. “Language.”

\--

He’s relaxed more on this holiday than he has for years. His skin might be tight and peeling, especially across his nose, but his limbs feel loose, and by the time they pile back onto the train after a last trip to the beach, he’s pleasantly tired.

Peter digs out one of his crime thrillers, but Morse leans back in his chair and watches the scenery instead. He’s got Susie tucked under one arm, their little mermaid, hair curling from the salt water and still faintly gritty with sand not quite washed off under the outdoor showers. She’d clambered onto his lap to watch the cows, but her eyelids soon grow heavy, and then she’s out for the count. 

He’d find it remarkably easy to follow her.

Peter nudges him awake at Reading and they change trains with Susie slung over one of his shoulders. She sleeps right the way through to Oxford, only waking begrudgingly to clamber onto the bus. 

“She won’t sleep tonight,” Peter says, but Morse just shrugs and lets her curl close again. It is still, technically, their holiday. Let her be.

\--

Back home the rhythm of daily life sweeps them up, and the warmth bleeds from the world before they know it. A year ago Morse was tracking muddy boot prints and facing off against Jago. He was breathing great gulps of relief seeing Max up on his own two feet, and handing over broken glasses. He was writing it all out on airmail paper, and signing the deeds on this house, and then he was worrying, calling out into a void that wasn’t answering back.

What a difference a year makes.

The anniversary of Hope's death, as could have been predicted, is a morose day. Morse had planned to take it off, be around, although he's not quite sure what for – he couldn't imagine them heading out to the park or to the movies. Instead, there's a double murder out in Botley which drags him in, and by the time he gets home it's late enough that even the corner shop has shut, and Susie has been put to bed.

“She's forgetting her, you know.”

Morse hangs up his coat, and slumps on the sofa so their knees touch.

“She was so young. She recognises the pictures, but-” Peter scrubs a hand over his eyes, and tosses back a half-glass of whiskey. It's Morse's stash; the cheap stuff, stuff to be drowned in, that rarely gets an airing these days. “She's forgetting  _ her. _ ”

Morse pats Peter's knee, at a loss. There's never anything he can say. He wishes he knew Hope better, had met her rather than learned her through Peter's letters. His whole knowledge of her is through Peter's gaze, and that's useless now, nothing new to reveal, no way he can be that other mourner that he needs. He leaves his hand where it is, and Peter's hand falls on top.

“I've had three of these,” he states blankly, cradling the glass.

“Tea?”

He nods, and Morse heads to the kitchen. When he returns he has two mugs balanced carefully, and a packet of digestives under his arm which he drops in Peter's lap.

“I think she would’ve liked you.”

“Hope?”

“Yeah. You could’ve talked about all your fancy college stuff. Books.”

Morse is silent. He thinks he would have liked Hope too, thinks they could have bonded over Peter and Susie if nothing else. But that would never have happened, and he can’t quite wish himself a future different to the one he has. He hates that he wouldn’t, even to wipe that look from Peter’s face, and is glad it’s not a power he has. 

“What happened today then? Botley, you said?”

It's not a cheery change of subject, but Morse recounts the story in as much detail as he can recall. “And so we'll go looking for him in the morning.”

“But you said the shopkeeper-”

“Mrs Sanders.”

“-said she didn’t hear anything? No way you can get in one of those shops without making a racket, not if it was shut up right.”

“The metal shutter.”

“Exactly.”

“So she's lying.”

Peter dunks a biscuit in the dregs of his tea, before tipping the whole lot back. “At least bending the truth, maybe protecting someone. Might be nothing.”

“Worth looking into though.” Morse finishes his tea in silence. “You ever think you're wasted in the post service?”

“Nah, not really.” Peter turns and smiles at him, and there are definite shadows in it, but not the layer of grief that there was before. “Really. Maybe one day I'll come back, show you all how it's done, but for now? I'm happy. Not – not happy, happy. But. Happy.”

He rubs his thumb along the side of his empty mug, still faintly warm like a limb that’s been pressed against another. “Yes, I understand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter added, another chapter added to the final total - I don't know what happened, they just wanted to go on holiday. I hope this didn't seem too choppy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last proper chapter, just a couple of little epilogues to come in ch.8, hopefully they'll be posted tomorrow. Hope you like it!

Morse slams through the front door and stands, dripping, on the mat. It’s been a shit day. And not even in the way of too-late police work, bodies littering the ground and suspects vanished - that’s the kind of shit day he can get behind; everyone  _ knows _ that’s awful, that’s something that can be drowned in whiskey and raged about.

But this kind of shit day? This kind was being assigned an accidental double shift on the rota, so he’d had to call Peter at four and let him know he wouldn’t be home for dinner, making do with some slop from the canteen. It was petty cases and bickering constables and the milk in his tea gone sour. It’s a crappy coat that lets the rain soak right through so he’s wet to the skin, and it’s gasping for breath because he took the last three streets at a run when his umbrella, too, gave up the ghost.

“Hi Morse. Bit wet out?”

And there’s Peter, at the other end of the hall, warm and dry and grinning, tea towel in hand. He must have been doing the dishes, despite the fact it’s pushing eleven.

“Thank you Sergeant,” he spits. “What fantastic detective skills you have.”

He immediately regrets it; the last thing he wants right now is a fight, even one laced with humour where they both know they don’t mean what they say. He should just go to bed. Write off the whole sorry day. His head feels heavy, eyes tired from peering at messy reports, and he lets it fall, scrubbing one hand over his hair and scattering droplets. He wants…

He doesn’t know what he wants. He just stands. He should at least hang his coat up, put his shoes next to the radiator, but there’s rainwater running down his neck and his face is so wet it feels like he just washed it, and his hands are numb from the cold, and - 

Peter steps close, bringing the tea towel up. He tousles Morse’s hair, wringing away the excess, then wipes around his brow, patting down his cheeks, nose, lips. He dries his neck, then covers over his ears until they thaw and the feeling comes back. Morse looks up, eyes wide, to find Peter studying him carefully... he’s not sure he’s ever had someone hold him this gently before. The towel muffles the sound of the record player in the lounge, shrinking the world until it’s just the two of them here, frozen. Staring into each other’s eyes.

“Let’s get this off.” Peter drops the towel on the floor, and nimbly undoes the buttons of Morse’s coat. He eases it down his arms, then turns and hangs it over the banister to dry. “This too?” he asks gently, fingers brushing at the hem of Morse’s jumper. The wool is itchy and heavy with water, and he nods, silently, as Peter pulls it up and over his head.

“My shirt’s wet too,” he says, voice low and more gravelly than normal. He clears his throat.

“Hmm, best do that as well, then.” 

His breath hitches when Peter’s fingers slip the first button through it’s hole, then grow bolder, two, three, four in quick succession, until it’s hanging open and those warm hands are on his shoulders, pushing the fabric back and down until it falls, tangled on his wrists, and Peter has to burrow underneath to release the cuff buttons too.

And then he’s standing there, stripped to the waist. His trousers are just as damp, splashed on the way home by a bus. But they’re standing in the hallway. He shivers.

“I - sorry.” Peter steps back, hands still stretched in front of him like they don’t quite want to let go. But he’s stepping  _ away. _ “I’ll - I’ll get the kettle on, get something warm in you, you go get changed -”

“No.” Morse grabs him by the waist - that belt, again, under his fingers - and drags him in. It’s cold, and he pulls until Peter lines up against him, until he can feel starched cotton against his bare stomach, and body heat seeping through. “No,” he repeats.

“You waited,” mumbles Peter against his throat.

“Said I would, didn’t I?”

“This is a bad idea.”

Morse nods decidedly, tightening his grip. “Terrible. Does that mean stop?”

“No,” Peter groans, and Morse feels himself spun and backed up until cold plaster hits his back. The record in the living room clicks off, spinning empty, and they breathe each other’s air in the sudden silence.

“Please,” he whispers, surprised to hear the word issued from his own lips. But Peter ducks, brushes his lips ever so lightly across Morse’s, and - that’s it. He’s holding too tight, he knows, hands clutching at the shirt on Peter’s back, but they’ve been here before and Peter pulled away, and if he holds on perhaps this time he won’t. Perhaps this time, they can have more.

The kiss deepens, slick and ratcheting up the heat until he’s glad he’s shed his shirt, until he thinks his hair should steam from it. Peter’s hand sneaks up into the damp curls, pulls him forward until it can slip between Morse and the wall, holding him close.

Peter moves back, making Morse’s hands grasp tighter, pull handfuls of shirt from Peter’s trousers and slip up underneath. But he’s just making his way across Morse’s collarbone, meandering round his neck to mouth at his ear, and the dual sensations of wet kisses and warm skin against his cold fingers makes him sigh. He slumps heavier against the wall, and pulls Peter close until their legs are intertwined. 

It wouldn’t be too soon for the bedroom this time. It’s been ten months of maybes, and he wants it all.

“Peter,” he gasps. That kiss had stung, more bite than tongue, but he can’t say he didn’t like it - the scrape of teeth over delicate skin. Another bite follows it, and he groans. “Yes.”

“Morse, can - can we -”

“ _ Yes _ ,” he says again, more emphatically. “Anything, what -”

Peter stands back, holding him at arm’s length, and cold seeps in - cold air against his bare skin, cold dread slipping traitorously into his stomach. But then he’s gathered up again, twisted, and Peter seems to have a thing for pushing him around, because he walks him backward, soft, fleeting kisses dropped on his cheeks, his mouth, his chin.

The stairs are a challenge, and they pull apart to navigate, although Morse keeps his hand clamped on Peter’s wrist. At the top there’s a brief pause, and then Morse pulls, lightly. Towards his bedroom. 

“Yeah?” he asks. 

For such a simple word, it’s covering a lot. It’s asking do you want this, want me? Are you ready to say goodbye to Hope, to Wyoming, to the cows and the sunshine? Will you risk this? Our home, our family, our careers and our friends - for the shining, glimmering potential of more? Of even better? 

It’s trading one life for another. Letting go of what came before. And they could have skipped this part, he could have tucked all doubts away and pushed Peter down the hallway, spread him out on his bed, put him where he wanted him and just taken. It would have happened. But Morse isn’t sure how he’ll cope if he gets another taste of this - if he gets  _ more _ \- and then has it ripped away. 

He ignores how the moment stretches, because it’s better, he tells himself, to know. Even if he has just shot himself in the foot.

But Peter smiles, and twists his wrist until Morse’s grip slips, until they can join hands, fingers interlaced. He squeezes, and Morse can’t help returning it - the squeeze or the smile - feeling that sense of home take root in his bones, so deep down it can’t ever fade. 

It’s an answer all of its own.

“Yeah,” Peter whispers in his ear, and Morse laughs as he’s hurried through his own bedroom door. He can’t help the grin, it doesn’t want to leave, right through being pushed down to lie on the bed and watch as Peter hops about disposing of his socks. But then he crawls towards Morse and hovers above him, and the humour crystallizes into something else entirely. Peter’s hands drift to Morse’s belt, hesitating. “Yeah?”

Morse laughs again; he can’t smother it, and it’s a beautiful chain reaction anyway, making Peter light up above him. “ _ Yes _ ,” he groans, reaching up for another kiss. “Get  _ on  _ with it already.”


	8. Chapter 8

###  Epilogue 1 - Summer, 1971

There’s a queue for the ice cream truck, and Morse waves Peter off as they reach it. Susie is impatient, overstimulated with all the noise and activity, and making her wait in line won’t be fun for anybody. He checks his wallet for coins.

"You look happy."

He starts at the familiar voice. It's Joan, at his elbow, and his mind flicks back to a similar summer fete two years ago. Except this time he's not in uniform, and the sight of Joan doesn't send roils of confused feeling through him. He fervently hopes there will be no missing girl at all, no repeat of that awful time, but just in case he searches the crowd until his eyes rest on Susie, her hand clutched safely in Peter's as she pets a goat.

"Shouldn't I be?"

"I'm just surprised." She looks up at him, and he must not have been successful in keeping his sneer on the inside, because she slaps him on the arm. "Oh, not like that! Just. Happiness. I feel like it's hard won for you."

"Hmm."

"Is it him?" She whispers in his ear, with a nod across at where Peter and Susie have moved on from the goat, and are now inspecting colourful ribbons from a stall vendor. He stiffens. "It's okay," she adds quickly. "I'm glad you're happy, where it comes from - well, doesn't really matter, does it? But... is it?"

If he can trust anyone, it's probably Joan. They've held their joint secrets close for years, and he knows she will do the same for this. He nods once, sharply. She grins.

"He's a bit of alright, isn't he?"

"Joan!"

"Oh come on," she drawls, giggling when he shuffles. They reach the front of the queue and he buys four ninety-nines, Joan holding three while he puts his wallet away. They walk off to a patch of shade no one has claimed. "You know I used to date him,” she adds, like no time has passed. “Of course I think he's a looker! And honestly I think being a postman suits him. All that cycling, his legs-"

"I'm not-" not doing this, he finishes silently. Where's a good handbag snatch when you need one? Never mind that he's off duty, he'll gladly drop the ice creams and spring into action. "What about you, anyway?"

"Me?"

"Where's your happiness?" He winces as soon as he's said it, but Joan is still fizzing over about him and Peter, and doesn't seem to mind.

"Being elusive," she says, but it's still with a smile.

"Ever considered Strange?"

"Jim?" Her gaze lengthens to the middle distance, settling somewhere near the ice cream van. "No, I - well, maybe. Once or twice. But he never asked."

"I could tell him to."

She elbows him again, and he's beginning to think a conversation with Joan these days requires protective padding. He doesn't remember her being quite so physical back when they were dancing around each other - but perhaps, then, it would have been imbued with more meaning. "Desperate to double date, are you?"

“Hi Joan.”

Morse peers upwards, to a familiar and welcome interruption silhouetted against the sun. Susie climbs into his lap, and he surrenders one of the ice creams to her grasp, despite knowing the chances are good it’ll end up all over both of them. Joan passes one of hers to Peter, who drops to the ground next to them.

“Peter,” she says slyly. “Nice to see you-”

“Joan would like to date Strange,” Morse announces to the group.

“I need a chaperone,” she adds. “Maybe two. Or even three.” She smiles at Susie, tweaking her hair out of her face and producing a napkin from one of her pockets. The ice cream is melting down Susie’s forearms, and she catches the drips before they ruin Morse’s trousers. “Almost a…” she trails off with a questioning look at Morse.

“Double date,” he admits through gritted teeth. To his surprise, Peter laughs. 

“Wouldn’t that be a bit weird? Going on a date with two ex-squeezes?”

“It’d just give Jim something to measure up to, wouldn’t it?”

“Keep him on his toes,” Morse murmurs. 

“We could make sure he’s treating you right,” Peter agrees, and Joan giggles.

“Unlike you, you mean. Good old Morse, he was my knight in shining armour that night.”

“Kinda glad it didn’t work out, if I’m honest,” Peter argues back with a smile. 

Joan softens, and looks between the two of them. “Yeah, I suppose I am as well. Not, perhaps, if you’d asked me then, but you two...” she shakes her head. “I never would have thought of this, you know? Never would have said it would work. But. I don’t know.”

“It does.”

“Yeah, Morse.” She hugs him, quick but tight, gone before he can react. “It does. Now I was meant to meet my friend Lindsay, so I’ll leave you to it.” She stands, and there are marks on her legs from the grass stalks. She crunches the last of her cone, and gathers up their used napkins. “I’m glad,” she says suddenly, turning back, her face hidden with the sun shining behind. Susie shuffles along to pick the daisies around Joan’s shoes. “Hold on to each other.” 

Morse can feel Peter’s hand ghost over his own before pulling Susie back into the shade. “Yeah,” he promises. “We will.”

  
****

###  Epilogue 2 - Autumn, 1974

“Susie!” he shouts up the stairs for the third time. He hears footsteps, a crash as she pulls her door open too hard and smacks it into the wall, then rhythmic thuds down the stairs. “Outside,” he adds through the open door. “Pick up your sandwiches.”

He pulls Peter’s old bike from where it leans against their front gate, and remembers the day he bought it. So unsure if he was overstepping. Peter doesn’t use it so much anymore; with more experience he’s taken on a longer route, and now has use of a work van to get everyone their post in a reasonable timeframe. 

Morse fastens his trouser clips and swings one leg the saddle. He’s getting ready to bellow into the house again just as a brown-haired beanpole comes speeding out. “Sometimes I think you’re late on purpose.”

“You’ll get me there on time.”

“”By going too quickly over the bumps,” he mock grumbles. He knows she likes it when he does that, the way she bounces up like on a fairground ride, and is just happy Peter has never seen it. He takes her bag and puts it on his own back, while she jumps up to sit on the handlebars. 

It’s a short cycle to the school, and his legs are used enough to it by now that they easily send them speeding through the streets and, yes, flying over the bumps. Susie giggles every time, the careful plaits he’d put in this morning already coming loose and hair turning flyaway in the breeze. 

“Have a good day,” he says, as they cross into the school. She hops down as he holds the bike steady, then leans forward for her to kiss his cheek. He leans on a sun-warmed wall until she reaches the door, and waves as she turns back to check, just like always. 

He knows the other parents think she’s his daughter, that he’s got a dark-haired wife tucked away somewhere. He’s heard the rumours; that she’s ill, taken to her bed. That she died in childbirth. That she’s a modern woman, and stuck him with the childcare like some kind of hussy. They probably think his name is Morse Jakes, and that the dark-haired man who picks Susie up in the afternoons is a cousin or an uncle. 

No one ever hits on the truth, or if they do, they're not brave enough to voice it. Not to the policeman who cycles away every morning, anyway, or the nice postman who does the return leg. 

It’s an unusual arrangement. It probably always will be; the world might sometimes feel like it’s changing fast, but there are some things he can’t ever see falling into place. Or at least, not while there’s still a brown-haired girl to take to school every day. It’s okay. Not perfect, but it doesn't matter when it comes right down to it. Because what they have? 

It works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has kudosed, commented, subscribed, etc. to this fic! You've really kept me going. Special thanks to those people who have been commenting by chapter, you know who you are :)
> 
> This was meant to be 5k of domestic 'Peter returns!' fluff, a break/diversion from the long fic I've been struggling with. It ended up four times that, eclipsing the long fic and becoming the longest story I've ever posted. At least we kept the fluffy domestic theme...?
> 
> <3


End file.
